SCP Case study FwTF: Ian Kyles
by TyranidGirl
Summary: The following document details the interactions between D-713239 (Ian Kyles) and various SCPs currently being held at the Site-[BLANK] . It is hoped that this file will shed some light on the true powers of SCP-[BLANK] , which was recently acquired by the foundation, along with Mr Kyles. This file is a level D file and is available to all personnel, and all sentient SCPs.
1. Waiting

Ian Kyles was sitting in his cell. He had lived in Scotland before he'd been brought here, and he was a very active person. He didn't want to spend hours sitting doing nothing, but he honestly didn't have a choice. There wasn't much else to do in there, apart from read his one page D-class orientation sheet, which he had already done. Several times.

D-713239

That was his number. His name didn't matter anymore. Not to them.

They called this place 'The Foundation', or at least that was then name of the organisation that controlled it. He didn't know much else about it, other than they obviously had backing from someone seriously rich, and that their P.R. team was so bad, he had never even heard of them. Not even through some obscure, deep web creepypasta.

The most important thing he knew, however, was that he was scheduled to do some 'testing' with an 'SCP', which was information he had gleaned from pressing his ear against the wall of the vehicle he had been moved here in. Ian may not have been clear on the definition of the word 'testing' in this context, but he doubted this SCP was a delightfully colourful lipstick, or a cure for the common cold.

On top of that he didn't have a clue what an 'SCP' was either, or what 'SCP' even meant. He guessed it was some type of classification or an abbreviation of some kind. He was fairly certain the one he was testing with had been said with a number to define it, but he had missed that due to the fact that he didn't have super hearing.

This was just an assumption, but he had overheard some of the guards had been talking about an 'SCP-682' after he reached the place he was now being held. They had been discussing how it had "breached containment" a few weeks ago and killed a bunch of people. The phrase "it just wouldn't stop…" hardly instilled confidence in Ian that it was just a crazed criminal who'd broken out of prison, which he was starting to think he would prefer.

Whatever that 682 was, Ian just hoped that what he was up against wasn't as bad. It also worried him that there where at least 682 of these SCPs. Honestly, that worried Ian more than anything else. After all, that's a lot of possibly dangerous, hidden things that Ian knew nothing about and which he might have to get up close and personal with at some point.

He ran his hand through his hair as he sat in his room contemplating what the foundation planned to do with him. The room couldn't have been more than four meters wide at the most, with the bed, toilet, and sink there wasn't very much space to walk in and in total it was barely longer than five meters. However, it was certainly cleaner and more… sturdy than he had anticipated.

Speaking of sturdy, the sound of boots thundering uniformly down the hallway became more and more apparent as what Ian could assume was a guard patrolled the corridor outside the large metal door which kept him from freedom. As the sound neared, he changed his assumption. It was two guards, the sounds of the boots which usually stayed perfectly in sync where slightly off this time around.

Usually the sounds reverberated past his door and kept right on going, but this time they stopped in the space outside his door. There was a swipe, some beeping and a series of clunks before the door to his cell swung open. Into the doorway stepped a guard, which Ian had expected, who was heavily armed with a large assault rifle. There was another, similarly armed guard standing just behind his commanding officer.

This voice that followed carried a slightly American accent, which was all Ian could draw from the man, who was wearing full body armor. It was articulated in a way that brought the term "military precision" to mind.

"We've got some work for you. Follow me. I've been ordered to shoot any disobedient test subjects, so don't try anything."

As if they'd shoot him… They had tried before. And it wasn't even the worst thing they had done. All the injections they had given him in the first few days had given him a horrible headache, but had had ultimately no effect. So instead they tried to kill him. He didn't know how, or why, but every time they tried to terminate him something went wrong.

Guns jammed. Knives snapped. Machines broke. And no matter what the foundation tried... they just couldn't kill him! And it truly scared him that these people wanted him dead so badly. Honestly he was starting to develop a bit of an immortality complex out of all of this. He was hardly intimidated by these guards, who he gathered were here to take him to SCP something or other. He once again found himself wondering what it was exactly that he was off to test with.

Whatever it was, Ian wanted out of that room... even if it meant going to another room with the possibly dangerous something or other. He nodded and stood up, slightly slower than he would normally.

This was for two reasons. One, he had been sitting down for hours, and two, he didn't want to startle the guard behind the one in the doorway into raising the alarm. The man looked a bit jittery, Ian could tell this, even through the armor. No doubt they had been told about the 'guns don't work on him' situation, and the nervous man was worried that he would try to kill them… for some reason, even though Ian wasn't exactly muscular… or tall.

 _"He looks like a rookie. The way he holds himself and how he's handling his gun is different from the other guards I've seen. He must not be used to wearing that equipment for a long time yet. He's definitely new here."_ Ian thought to himself, as he often did, while he slowly walked forward. The guard at the door moved out of the way to let him pass and the nervous guard led the way. He was walked down the corridor, which seamed longer than it had been when he had been brought in. Once they reached its end, they turned a corner and continued on through a few tunnels and over a few catwalks, and Ian noticed that all the way the second guard kept glancing over his shoulder at Ian. The Scotsman noticed this behavior and decided to think about the implications of it. After all, walking without thinking seemed a little pointless to him.

 _"That guys awfully paranoid. Perhaps he's been here longer than I thought. There are some odd scrapes on his amour... like he was attacked by a wild animal... a big one... recently, poor guy. Maybe it was one of those SCP things. No wonder he so jumpy... if he was attacked by something that could make a mark like THAT."_ Ian thought as he examined three large claw marks that ran diagonally down the soldiers back.

The marks weren't very deep, but some force seemed to have been put into the blow. It would have given the guard more than a little fright. He almost felt scared for this guy by association. Ian's newly formed inferiority complex hadn't yet encapsulated things like wolves or bears. Or in the case, what appeared to be dragon-bears.

The first guard had been trailing Ian the whole way and he seemed to be getting annoyed by the second guard's shifty behavior. This was confirmed when he spoke again, which startled the second soldier. "God damn it private! You don't need to keep looking at him! He's not going to grow claws and cut your head off! Keep your eyes forward!" The second guard straightened up immediately and fixed his eyes straight ahead.

"Y-yes sir!" He replied. He definitely sounded younger than Ian expected... around 17 or 18, give or take a year. Ian didn't have much time to ponder about the two guards as they soon arrived at their destination.


	2. Cleaning

Ian and the two guards arrived outside the door to the testing area which opened up out of the smaller corridor they had been walking through. The metal padding on the walls dissipated, giving the room a different feel. Less evil lair, more evil warehouse. At least it didn't lose the evil. There was a metal door on the far wall, with a few warnings and signs posted next to it.

"Go in there and do everything you're told to and you'll probably be fine." The first guard ordered. Ian nodded sternly and walked towards the sturdy looking door... but he stopped in his tracks a meter from it.

Next to the door there was what appeared to be an information poster titled "SCP-173", and on it there was a picture of a... thing. It looked like a rather creepy statue. It had BIG, bright green, circular eyes. There were two mouths on its face, one which ran in a similar fashion to a normal mouth and the other which ran vertically where its nose should have been. Each was lined with sharp, jagged teeth. It had an oversized, round body and comparatively small arms and legs, which were rounded at the ends, leaving the statue with no hands or feet.

Its face seemed to be covered in something red... not blood but... spray paint? _"That can't be right?"_ Ian thought to himself as he scanned the description of the statue. Even though it was a picture it certainly looked like spray paint to Ian, and his eyesight was impeccable, even if he did say so himself. As it turned out it _was_ spray paint, and the statue seemed to have been constructed in the same way any other creepy bug eyed statue would be. If that was the case, why was it here, under armed guard? The thought that it might be a Banksy very briefly flickered across his mind.

Despite its obviously disturbing looks, this thing didn't scare him, it very much interested him. There was just something about it. Something that he connected with. Perhaps it was because they were both being kept in a strange place. The Scotsman was about to read on when-

"Get moving D-class!" Shouted the first guard cocking his gun. The second, less experienced guard followed suit, but took a few more seconds to ready his own fire arm. Ian lifted his hands slightly in submission and stepped forward towards the door, which opened by itself, before moving swiftly inside away from the gun wielding guards. The sheet of steel slid shut behind him as he walked on to stand next to two other D-class in the room, who had arrived before him and now stood on a clearly marked yellow line on the floor.

This new room was large, and made of slabs of solid concrete. There was a raised, keycard door, which lead out onto an equally raised catwalk. The guard stationed on it surveyed the three bellow. Ian didn't let himself forget that his raised position gave him a good vantage point from which to eliminate any disobedient prisoners. Opposite this catwalk there was a large metal panel of sturdy construction which took up almost a whole wall and that, by the looks of it, was some kind of door with a smaller, more recognizable, door set into it. Like the other doors to this room it looked incredibly durable if, a little worryingly, dented.

Ian looked over to the other two D-class. They both looked like they had served considerable time in prison. He could tell from the almost nonchalant way they stood around, even though they could be shot if they stepped too far out of line. As he looked at his fellow test subjects a voice, cold yet intelligent, rang over the intercom.

"D-537522, please retrieve the appropriate utensils provided for your assigned task from the storage area." The D-class in the middle, an older balding man to Ian's left, shifted and looked up to the guard on the catwalk, as if to confirm that it was him being referred to. He received a swift nod in return.

The D-class then moved over to the catwalk and stood just under it, in front of a silver door, which was inset into the dull grey wall and was lacking a handle. After waiting a few seconds the metal panel slid out of the way, revealing a small and darkened room. Moving into the container, the D-Class slowly backed out of the container with... a mop and a cleaner's trolley? The inmate wheeled the trolley back into the bright light provided by the caged bulbs suspended high above, to his original position on the line. It took the poor guy some effort, he had clearly not done this before. Ian had expected this to be some kind of experiment, not a summer job, spring cleaning an eccentrics sculpture.

The D-class then fumbled with a drawer, pulling it open with an oddly reduced speed. It turned out to be filled with steamy, soapy water which bubbled as the mop was moved from a rack on the trolley and dropped into it. D-15786 propped the handle of the mop on the cart and left it to stew.

As the inmates lined up again, the guard on the catwalk interacted with a panel on the wall and the large metal door began to rise, pulled upwards by, what Ian could assume, where some pretty badass pulleys.

His eyes followed the hefty metal wall. There was a gasp to his far left. He looked to the younger man, whose face was contorted in fear and confusion. Clearly he hadn't read the poster on the way in.

The door found its place embedded in the ceiling where it settled into silence once again. Despite his intrigue, Ian found himself fighting not to look. His curiosity got the better of him, and he looked.

It really did have big eyes. He suddenly felt like comparing himself to a cat, given the popular saying.

"D-class, please enter SCP-173's containment for cleaning." The heartless voice rang over the radio again. Ian stared mindlessly at the statue, his mind preoccupied with its odd appearance. He wondered what their instructor meant by 'containment' or 'cleaning'. Ian pondered this thoroughly, only bringing up more questions about the circumstances. His thoughts quickly boiled down to _"Why contain a statue?"_. He continued puzzling as he stepped through the giant doorway.

 _"…_ _and what would we possibly need to-"._ A shallow splat caught Ian's attention _"… Clean up…?"_ he looked down to see what he had stepped in. In his mental absence, he had neglected to notice the pool of thick red _blood_. He leapt backwards, like a startled cat, out of the gore, and obsessively wiped his shoe on the concrete. His disgust and shock was interrupted, however.

"D-536424 and D-713239, please maintain direct eye contact with SCP-173 at all times and alert each other before blinking." The orders where odd, but Ian followed them. D-537522 began cleaning up a few other puddles of blood that seemed to have been… scraped through. Despite the entirely disturbing nature of what was going on, Ian had one new question that was truly pressing him.

The question was... whose blood was it? There were no bodies. If they had removed the bodies, then why didn't they clean up the blood? Ian thought about this as he carefully controlled his urge to blink, (he had been practicing in his room to see how long he could do it for) and he came to the only logical conclusion he could fathom from the odd circumstances.

The blood must be from this 'SCP-173'. It was an odd theory, certainly, but it was the best he had, and to him it made sense. It also lead to another new question, which was why was it bleeding?

As the D-class went about their jobs, the only door began to close. But as soon as the door touched the ground, there was a loud scrapping which seemed utterly out of place in this temple of silence and efficiently. The door shook and creaked before it began to open again. Apparently this wasn't supposed to happen.

The other two D-class looked up from their work to look at the malfunctioning door, but Ian didn't move and kept his eyes locked on the statue. When he realized that he was the only one looking, he could have yelped in gratitude for his newfound obsession with this statue. He would rather not be berated by the guards for failing at such a simple task.

"..Err... we seem to be having problems with the door... just... maintain eye contact with SCP-173 until we regain door control.". One of the D's turned swiftly back to the statue, while the other took a few moments more to ogle the wobbling door. Three pairs of eyes where fixed on the statue as the door juddered up and down. After a few moments of regularly interrupted silence, Ian noticed that the others had stopped saying when they needed to blink. In retrospect, he should have piped up about this, but the two other men where imposing, and being a man of few words and fewer assertions he didn't want to 'distract' the two scary men by criticizing them. So he held his eyes open and hoped for the best.

The door continued to shudder, occasionally taking a break to squeal at the occupants of its room. It took a few moments, but it closed and stayed still.

Then the lights flickered.


	3. Crunch

The lights dimmed and brightened for a few seconds... before cutting out entirely. There was a scraping sound, like concrete on concrete, followed by a sickening scream and a _crunch…_ The screaming abruptly cut off. It happened in an instant. To say the least, Ian was alarmed.

The lights flashed back on. The statue had moved! It was now standing over the D-class who had been charged with cleaning. The poor, poor man's neck was twisted into a disgusting position, his body folded over in a heap. The other living D-class screamed and ran towards the door and began banging on it with both fists.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" the D-class shouted and hollered. Ian would have joined him in his efforts, but found he couldn't move. Not at all. In fact, he was so entirely jarred by the amount of stuff going on, Ian was about to tell the other remaining D-class to keep his eyes on the statue. He realized just a little too late that he needed to blink.

He blinked. And the screaming once again stopped.

The statue now stood over by the door, the still choking body of his fellow inmate swinging gently by his neck, which was held in the creature's stumps. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and blood poured from his mouth. Ian's stomach wrenched at what his eyes could see.

Ian stared at the scene, trying his best not to take his eyes off of the murderous statue, not out of the unperceived necessity, but out of shock. It had only been a few seconds since those people had been alive…

Still reeling from the deadlock of emotions in his head, Ian almost shut out the familiar voice ring over the intercom.

"WARNING! SCP-106 has breached containment! Commence evacuation and recontainment procedures!"

The lights cut out again, but came on quicker than before. SCP-173 was headed for his final victim, and would close the gap in no time at all. Ian yelped, snapping back as his mind caught up with him. His mind turned itself to self-preservation and he tripped over himself as he backed into the corner of the hanger-like room.

Attempting to regain what was left of his composure, he forced himself to focus. He could handle this, he just. Needed. To focus.

Taking in all available information now was important. There had to be something. Something which could help. Despite himself, he couldn't help but wonder how something with no visible hands could snap a person's neck so easily. Even as the concrete monster glared menacingly at him, he let his eye slide to the new bloody marks on the floor.

Ian's brain ran through his previous thought process as to where the blood came from... and that gave him an idea. It was stupid and, based on what had just happened would likely end in failure, but Ian figured _"nothing ventured, nothing gained_." He breathed deeply, purposefully filling his lungs as much as he could, and straightened up against the corner of the wall. He blinked, allowing SCP-173 to move closer. _"3 meters ...interesting."_ he noted during his survey. Concentrating was rather difficult considering there was a loud alarm going off in the room outside.

Ian slid along the grey concrete wall, absent mindedly running his fingers along the scratched out grooves on the wall. He was slowly moving to a position where he was 4 meters away from the stone monstrosity. He blinked again. SCP-173 appeared 1 meter away from him. Ian jumped a little, for obvious reasons, but commenced his plan promptly. He stepped forward, close enough that he could touch the tall creature if he so chose to...

… Which he did. He stretched out his arms before reaching forward, ever so slowly placing his hands on the ends of SCP-173's stumpy limbs. Despite the look of it the creatures arms felt rather wet despite not showing any liquid, but wasn't like water... it was sticky... like blood. This was another important note in Ian's impromptu study.

Ian reviewed the procedures of his plan again and it still seemed preposterous, but knew that in most of the possible outcomes to this situation he probably wouldn't live to see the inside of his less than cozy cell again... or even anything outside of this room. _"To hell with it."_ he thought as he took another deep breath. Then he closed his eyes.


	4. Blood

He thought the statue would move faster than it did. It gave him a chance to feel the concrete creature turn to flesh, which was as grotesque as it sounded. It moved under his fingers, and it wasn't the most pleasant thing Ian had ever experienced. Then the odd dampness became more apparent. Ian instinctually wanted to open his eyes. It took forceful though to keep them shut, because of the hindrance looking would cause to his investigation. Even without sight, however, he could take an educated guess at what the liquid was from the eerie metallic smell that had suddenly intensified.

Blood. Definitely blood.

The liquid was surprisingly warm as it dripped through his fingers, and more pieces of the puzzle in Ian's mind slid into place.

 _"So I was right then..."_ the Scotsman thought to himself. It was indeed the statue which was bleeding.

The creature squirmed and shifted in his grip. And as Ian was starting to relax, or at least starting to calm down, the SCP wrenched its appendages out of Ian's grip before retreating out of the range of his reach. Ian's hands hovered out where the creature had just been. He took a moment to recover from the minor heart attack he had just had, coughing slightly, in a suppressed sort of way, as his body had once aging frozen up.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked around the room, his heart thumping away, in anticipation of another jump scare. The statue had moved to the opposite side of the room and was now in the corner left of the door. Its back was to the wall and it was facing Ian. He looked at his out-stretched hands and was immediately hit with the urge to wipe the blood off of them. The liquid had coated his hands and had pooled into the creases on them.

He barely hesitated in dropping to the ground, rubbing the palm of his hands as thoroughly as he could against the concrete ground. The thought of the ichor on his hands caused his arms to start shaking, and the nauseated feeling returned. The feeling of the cold, dry concrete against his skin, removing the blood from his person, was more than a little relieving.

When he was satisfied that his hands were clean, his mind refocused. The brunet almost jumped when he realized the SCP had been unobserved for at least twenty seconds, before finally looking up to the statue.

Strangely, it had remained in the corner, with both its mouths now firmly closed. It still didn't move, even when he blinked, rather inadvisably. There were fresh bloody scrape marks on the floor leading towards the statue. Slowly Ian stood up again, stopping momentarily to think about the next stage of his plan.

He had nothing. Mostly because he didn't expect to still be alive at this point.

Looking over at the statue, he picked up the cleaning trolley in his peripheral vision, which was sitting, abandoned, in the middle off the room. He walked over to it, carefully trying not to look at the corpse sitting nearby, and searched it idly. He was still trying to remind himself that he hadn't been brutally murdered and that he needed to get out of this room somehow (although being outside didn't sound to be a very happy idea either, given the distant alarms and suspiciously gun-like explosions he could hear). His thought was that maybe there was something on the cart that would help, though Ian doubted it.

A dull scraping echoed from behind him, around the large room. Ian turned around to see the statue has drifted from its previous spot, slightly towards him. Rather strangely, instead of facing him straight on, it was at a slight angle to him. It brought to mind someone who was sneaking over to look at something that wasn't their business. Alternatively, maybe it was just really bad at sneaking.

Either way, the Last D-class didn't really want it getting close again, since he had actually managed to ward it off in the first place. With his chest vibrating a little harder for a short moment, Ian lifted his hand up and pointed his finger at the creature. He narrowed his eyes with pseudo-aggression, his brow knotting together, making the hairs in his eyebrows furrow.

The look was an attempt to silently say _"back off."_ He really hoped it would work. He blinked, to find that it hadn't. The statue was still there, staring at the door, its lips almost looked pursed. At least it hadn't gotten closer.

Still feeling a little threatened, Ian closed his eyes and took three intent-full steps towards it. His back was straight, and his chest was puffed out. He almost could have looked aggressive, if his arms hadn't be reaching forward, waving slightly as he tried not to overbalance as he stumbled blindly forth.

Perhaps Ian managed to display his feelings telepathically, because there was another grinding sound. The statue has moved back to its corner by the time Ian had opened his eyes.

 _"I can't believe that actually worked."_ He stopped and thought to himself. Turning back to walk bemusedly back to the trolley, his searching continued. After about a minute, he found something promising.

It was a small drawer in the side of the trolley with the words 'Emergency supplies' stamped into it. Unfortunately, it was locked. It crosses Ian's mind that this was not the best idea for something that might need to be opened in a hurry. It almost negated its own purpose.

Now, Ian was not expert in lock picking, but he understood how it worked, to some degree. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of metal wire, which he had found on the floor of his room, rather conveniently. He put a small bend in the very end of it before slotting it into the lock on the drawer.

Again, deep scratching betrayed the movement of the statue. Glancing back, it stopped, needless to say, but this time a blink sent 173 back to the corner.

The amateur thief tested each of the tumblers and raked along the inside of the lock until he had herd several satisfying clicks. He then took the exposed end of the wire and bent it around to form a makeshift handle to turn the lock and open the door. By some miracle the wire didn't break and Ian slid the drawer open. Its movement was smooth, well-oiled and quiet, and it made a soft clink upon opening fully. The quality of the apparatus may have been high, but its contents weren't particularly startling.

The drawer held a torch, extra batteries, a spare keycard (with very little clearance), a bottle of pills labeled 'Class-A sedatives' and pen knife. Nothing which could obviously be used to either exit the room or make it more hospitable. He sighed and allowed himself to lean over the trolley, rather heavily. He pressed his palms against the smooth surface of the top of the cart.

There was more scraping behind him, but at this point Ian's adrenalin levels had long since peaked and were starting to drop. He was almost exhausted. So he just let the statue bumble around behind him, knocking at the door, probably trying to move to another corner from the sounds of things.

Feeling deflated at the horrendous nature of his entire situation, the scot flopped lazily across the top surface of the trolley, clambering onto it slightly, lifting his left leg over to rest on the top of it, so he could lie down. It was rather warm at one end because of the hot water still held in it.

With this, he thought to himself _"How on earth did I get here?"_ with the question being answered by rather too much self-loathing. The statue had started making more noise in the background. It sounded like it was having a fight with the metal door, which was squeaking and squawking. He rooted for it a little.

After a few minutes, he got quite uncomfortable lying on the hard, small surface. He felt like an overweight cat trying to sleep on a window ledge. He pushed himself up to sit on it, his legs straddling the sides, as if it were an oddly shaped horse.

Pushing the broom out of the way, which was still sitting in the drawer of water, Ian took another look at 173. It was now at the other corner of the door, facing it. There were more bloody marks on the floor. But this time there was something different. The blood was also trickling down the door, running along the folds in the corrugated door, before dribbling down the doorframe on to the floor, where a small puddle was forming.

There was a strange tingling in Ian's palms as he thought about where it came from. It was then the brunet had a thought. Again, it was rather dumb, but he was on a bit of a roll and with nothing but the alarms in the room beyond this one to focus on he was starting to get a headache. He leap off the trolley, swinging one leg over and pushing himself of to land, upright, on his feet. He skidded back round to the other side of the cart, and riffled through the open emergency drawer again.

Ian found the pen knife again and held its small black case between his thumb and finders. Lifting it to his face, he started opening up the miniature tools one after another. A small knife. Surprisingly enough, a bottle opener and a cork screw. A can opener. A slightly larger knife. A very sharp knife. A nail file. And a pair of scissors. It was only small, more a pair of nail clippers than actual scissors, but they were sharp, and scissors where scissors and it was the best thing he had.

He turned around to face that startled statue, gripping the open pen knife in his right hand. The D-class slowly, and with a somewhat reckless level of relaxation, made his way over to the statue, unzipping his orange jumpsuit as he went. He had covered just over half the distance between the two of them when he blinked, like the fool he was, having forgotten the implications. The SCP took the opportunity to shuffle away along the wall, away from Ian.

First he jumped a little, then scoffed at his own stupidity, trying not to let on that he had just had another minor heart attack. He spun on the spot throwing his arms behind his head and signing. When he looked back, the statue was further away. It was now sitting in the back corner, its hands pressed pointedly against the wall. Although from the looks of things the blood had stopped. Or at least it had stopped being visible.

Ian readjusted his trajectory, making expressly sure that he didn't blink OR look away from the statue.

He stopped a few meters in front of the SCP and took his arms out of his jump suit, picking up the left arm once it was empty. He used the tiny scissors to cut the sleeve off at the shoulder. The pen knife struggles with this but eventually he made it through the two layers of fabric. Occasionally 173 would shift or try to move, but it could find a way of doing so without getting close to Ian. Now it was the one stuck in the corner.

Now that he had a reasonable amount of fabric, Ian began the arduous task of cutting it into strips. The scissors spiraled around the fabric from one end to the other. It was painfully slow, and half way through Ian got sick of trying to hold the fabric and cutting it as the same time, so he sat down, cross legged, where he had been standing.

Finally, he had one long strip of cloth. He straightened it out, and folded it across itself. Finding the middle, he cut in half to make two strips. With his sleeve sufficiently cannibalized, he put the pen knife back in his pocket before stretching his arms and spine. It was fascinating how much stress could build up in ones' muscles from only ten minutes of sitting stock still, on a concrete floor. He carefully, and very slowly, lifted himself off the floor, which cause his head to spin regardless of the speed he took the action at.

Now was probably the time to remind himself about his surroundings. The alarms where still going outside the room, but at least he had been distracted. Some of them had even stopped, thankfully. The statue had stopped moving entirely, and no longer appeared to be attempting to escape. Whether that was out of fear or acceptance that he could do nothing if the strange man wanted to touch him again, Ian couldn't say. The trolley was still there, but the Scott imagined the water in it would be lukewarm at most by now. This meant the D-classes perch would be a disappointing body temperature.

Ian twisted around on the spot, turning his back to loosen it, and reaching his arms around his body. First to the left, he felt several satisfying cracks. Then to the right, less this time. He yawned, and dropped the fabric strips which crumpled into a pile, then followed them to the ground again. He stretched out his legs, wiggling his feet and flexing his knees, before pulled his right leg closer to him and carefully, he slipped off the cheap standard plimsoll shoe that adorned it. This allowed him to access a rather long grey sock, ugly but practical. He quickly pulled it off, then repeated this method for the other foot, throwing his shoes aside as he did so. Ian examined his baggy socks before picking up the orange strips.

Surprisingly they weren't sweaty and gross, despite the highly stressful circumstances. It must have been something in the evil corporation brand detergent which made them 100% sweat resistant

Standing again, he delicately hopped from foot to foot as his feet adjusted to the cold floor, in the absence of his shoes and socks. Slowly, he stepped forward, towards the SCP, keeping his footsteps light so as small an amount of his foot touched the cold ground as possible. Once again, he reached the touching distance of the statue, so he began shuffling the items in his hands so that one of the fabric strips was held between both his hands and everything else was in his pockets.

The Scotsman took a deep breath and extended his arms into the statues own frozen reach, holding the strip of fabric over its wrist-area. Lowering it, the fabric caught on the concrete stump. The strip lost tension as Ian let go of one end. He started winding the other end around the statues arm, focusing first on covering the loose end tightly so the binding wouldn't come off. This was his plan, finally moving forward, albeit very slowly.

It was simple, really. The blood on the floor had been there from the beginning, and Ian knew that it could only belong to the only living thing in the room, SCP-173. He had then discovered the cause of the bloody stains when the statue started to move. It wasn't consistent or constant, but it was regular enough. The only logical reason for this was that the SCP was injured and bleeding. So Ian, being the kind and generous (and otherwise unoccupied) soul he was, decided to help it, as the rest of this foundation place did not seem intent on doing so, either out of ignorance on the creatures health or out of lack of caring.

Ian tried to work as quickly as possible, blinking each of his eyes alternately so his patient wouldn't scuttle away. When the makeshift bandage had been wound around twenty or so times, the Scot tied if on firmly and examined his work. He took an extra moment to massage the creatures now covered limb, smoothing the fabric comfortably before moving onto its next arm.

10 slightly nervous minutes later, after he was done with that he lowered himself to his knees, heaving a sigh. Holding one of his socks in both hands, he was feeling rather weary but he was half way done so he wasn't stopping now. With his left hand behind the statue's left leg, Ian blew out a deep breath forcefully and once again closed his eyes.

Its skin felt almost like it was turning to silk beneath his touch and Ian couldn't help but appreciate how soft it was. There was clearly a supporting structure buried somewhere beneath the skin, but there were no obvious muscles. Its body was padded out by what appeared to be fat, but which was held, without folding or sagging, by the soft epidermis. The creature's joints had loosened up now, and so he eased its leg up and felt how it shifted its weight onto its other leg. The way it started tipping over, leaning sideways, it must have started leaning on the wall. It almost felt like it would fall over, perhaps because one doesn't expect a statue to be pliant enough to balance itself. Ian lifted one of his knees so his foot could rest flat on the ground, just in case he needed a little stability when he dived out of the way when the thing finally toppled.

Ian moved the cotton sock around in his hand and carefully slid it onto the stump of the statue's leg. The Scotsman pulled the repurposed sock up 173's leg and was surprised at how well it fit. Not too tight, not too loose. It wouldn't leave little teeth masks on the statues supple flesh. He lowered its foot to the floor again, partly aided by gravity, partly by the owner of the baseless leg.

Feeling much calmer, and even a little safer in the situation, Ian let out another few breaths, releasing the reigns of his breathing, which he had been carefully monitoring just in case he breathed to hard. He didn't fancy startling the stone behemoth. While his hands where free, Ian ran them roughly back and forth through his hair, before scooping up the other sock of the ground and stretching them out and continuing on.

More touching and shifting ensued, until finally he was able to stand up and straighten his spine again. The resulting backward stretch rewarded him with another, pressure relieving pop from his spine. Satisfied that it was substantial enough, he opened his lips a little revealing a small portion of his smile, pushing off of his raised knee to stand slowly.

Both of its mouths were open again, which at this distance allowed Ian to see the damp tongues in each of its mouths. While its lips where parted, they weren't open wide enough to tighten its face into an angry grimace. Its lower mouth almost mirrored the D-classes, the corners of which were turned up as if it was smiling too. Although much like Ian it was a rather forced smile, and whether this was because it was copying Ian or because it was also suffering from a slightly pained back was indistinguishable.

 _"Ok... a bit odd but... maybe that's not a bad sign... for a moving statue"_ Ian thought as he viewed the SCP. He pivoted his aching neck, turning his head to glance at the metal door which was apparently non-functioning. He huffed and shrugged. _"I might as well make the most of this"_ The Scot reached back into his pocket and retrieved the small multi-tool again. He flipped out the scissor tool and flexed it a few times to remove the stray fibers from between the small blades.

Flopping to the ground again he lazily crossed his legs and began cutting away at his other sleeve. He let his eyes lose focus ad he worked lazily. Because he wasn't particularly worried about his fellow room occupant anymore, he blinked without worry. This allowed some movement on the part of the statue, which would have been more bothersome but for the lack of scrapping and grinding. If the addition of the socks had no other affect than muffling the noise then it was worth it. This time, Ian got bored of cutting halfway through the sleeve, so he cut his losses, and the long strip, leaving him with strip of fabric 30 centimeter long, more or less.

Ian grabbed his folded legs by the knees and stretched himself back, closing his eyes and enjoying the change in posture. He stretched his neck to look up at the ceiling, and was startled to find that when he opened his eyes he was disturbingly close to the statue who was behind him, leaning towards him ever so slightly. As he looked up at it, it looked back down, its head tipped forward. He showed the SCP a slightly nervous smile. Sitting up straight again he tightened the cross in his legs and placed his hands on the ground. He lifted his body, spinning it around to face the statue before pushing himself a little farther from it. When he was settled he leaned forward to snatch up the length of cloth he had left behind. Hesitating very little, it didn't take long for his eyes to be covered tightly by the cloth which was tied in a knot behind his head.


End file.
